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Mary Charteris

Photographed by Margherita Chiarva

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Photographed by Margherita Chiarva

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Photographed by Margherita Chiarva

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Photographed by Margherita Chiarva

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Photographed by Margherita Chiarva

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It may be Milan Fashion Week but model and musician Mary Charteris’s mind is elsewhere. At the brand new Stuart Weitzman store designed by superstar architect Zaha Hadid, Charteris explains she’s joined her husband Robbie Furze’s band, The Big Pink, and is keen to invest in some appropriate footwear for the British group’s forthcoming tour dates.

“We recently went to Russia for a gig, and it was minus fifteen. It was the kind of place where you really needed fur boots,” she says pulling on a chunky black style lined in sheepskin over skinny jeans paired with a sparkly Sass & Bide top. She says her frontman husband would probably prefer to see her in heels a little more often. “I’m always in Dr. Martens,” she giggles. The pair recently celebrated their one-year anniversary, but for this rock ’n’ roll couple, celebrating with dinner for two at a restaurant (in heels) was out of the question. “We invited people to my dad’s house in the Gloucestershire countryside. We had really good weather, so we made a huge slide from sheets of plastic and had a barbeque.”

The bucolic Cotswolds setting of her father, the Earl of Wemyss’s, Stanway House perhaps explains Charteris’s preference for practical footwear. She tries on a pair of black leather sneakers with chunky silver zip details and some very cute preppy tasseled loafers. “I either go for tomboy styles like these or something really peacock-y,” she says, referring to a glamorous pair of sky-high stripy sandals that would work perfectly at the store’s very splashy opening party hosted by Stuart Weitzman and Kate Moss later that night..

“I feel so grown up in these,” she giggles. It’s a different look and indeed suits her other new role, as one of the faces of L’Oréal Professionnel. She loves the rose-gold color the company dyed her tresses. Today, however, it’s her musician role that’s at the forefront of her mind, so we return to the aforementioned sneakers. Charteris is off to China where she’ll travel with the band, singing backing vocals and playing the synth. “I used to go on tour, and it was kind of boring just hanging out. They get the adrenaline rush every day, and if you don’t do anything, it’s tough. It just evolved really . . . now, it’s so much fun.”